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Micah 3:5-12
Proper 26A
After spending a sustained amount of time in the books of Genesis and Exodus over the summer and early Fall, in the month-long lead up to Advent, the Lectionary plops us down into 4 different prophetic books. So part of the commentary each week will be to orient us to the argument of the book…
Psalm 43
Proper 26A
If you rounded up some Old Testament scholars and especially those who are experts on the Book of Psalms, you would likely find consensus among most of those people that Psalms 42 and 43 belong together such that you really cannot look at one without the other. Some might contend this had originally been a…
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Proper 25A
A Sunday Too Soon Looking at this reading and the liturgical calendar, I can’t help lamenting that the text has come just one Sunday too early. November 1 is celebrated, in many church traditions, as All Saints Day — an opportunity to remember our ancestors in faith. Certainly, this story of Moses on the cusp…
Psalm 1
Proper 25A
Psalm 1 is such a positional psalm. By that I mean that from start to finish this song is all about where a person is situated and what their posture or position is. We begin with a negative litany of where a blessed person must not be. A blessed person does not walk with sinners,…
Exodus 33:12-23
Proper 24A
Go Between The first 11 verses of chapter 33 spell out the way Moses was called by God to operate among the people. At first God indicates that Moses will need to lead the people on his own. It’s almost as if God doesn’t trust that He will be able to keep loving these hard-hearted,…
Psalm 96:1-9
Proper 24A
In the mid-1970s when I was a boy, our congregation in Ada, Michigan, got a new minister who tended to begin worship services using Psalm 96:7-8 as his Call to Worship. Over and over and more weeks than not I heard Rev. MacLeod say, “Ascribe to the Lord . . .” multiple times. I…
Exodus 32:1-14
Proper 23A
Meanwhile, Back at Camp… Let’s pause for a moment to consider where we are in the text. Last Sunday’s lectionary reading was the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20 but the intervening 11 chapters are filled with all kinds of instructions for God’s people — from how to treat animals and property to the ordination of…
Psalm 23
Proper 23A
All things being equal, I suppose it would be OK if we preachers did not find anything overly new or original to say about what may be the most famous, best-loved psalm of them all. In fact, sometimes our efforts at being innovative can lead us astray even as being overly zealous to share some…
Psalm 80:7-15
Proper 22A
This week the Lectionary is carving out the middle section of Psalm 80 beginning at verse 7 and its call for God to make his face to shine on his people so as to restore them. If we zoom out and look at the entire psalm, then we see that verse 7 is a refrain…
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Proper 22A
Leaving Out the Hard Bits Reading through the Lectionary selection this week, I had the feeling I get when my pre-schooler, who is playing in the other room, suddenly goes quiet. Immediately suspicious, I want to know what he’s up to. So, similarly, it might be important to investigate the quiet bits, the parts the…
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